An enormous fan project to create a non-commercial King’s Quest episode to provide better closure to the 9-part classic game series, and been in the works since around 2003, has been shut down after they received a cease-and-desist order from Activision.
The group originally not only had permission (and a non-commercial license) but kudos and greenlights from the original game design team from the original company (Vivendi, a Sierra sub-co) that created King’s Quest way back in the day of MS-DOS gaming — but the intellectual property rights were recently sold to Activision, and now Activision’s law team has issued C&D orders to shut the entire operation down.
Years and years of project development, including massive forum archives, all cast into oblivion. Thanks, Activision.
The Silver Lining Project Killed
If you follow the forum link, you get details on how to send emails to Activision admins on how to petition revocation of this very silly legal maneuver.
Edit – I submitted the news tip to Consumerist, who have spearheaded a technique called “Executive E-mail Carpet Bombing” whereby people can send e-mails to executives of a company instead of the regular bureaucratic support system, so perhaps the issue will get a bit more exposure.
the ablestmage press 